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01:50
Wonder if I can get a decent boost from Reddit still. Hmmmm... reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/85y31f/…
 
2 hours later…
03:21
7
A: Why does Starman's speed relative to the Sun fluctuate so often?

PearsonArtPhotoAs was astutely noted by Hans, the period of the movement was about 25 days. It turns out that is the time it takes for the sun to rotate once. When I was grabbing the data from JPL Horizons, I listed the target as "coord@10". I should have omitted the "coord", as that means coordinates. Without ...

@PearsonArtPhoto I think that blogging about mistakes you've made on your own web site may be pushing the boundaries of what a proper Stack Exchange answer should be. Should there be some reasonable limit to the number of times this happens?
A space expert seeing such a wild oscillation of a spacecraft's velocity when it was in deep space would likely recognize it as plainly and obviously wrong, and hesitate to post it to the internet.
2
A: Why does the Roadster have some orbits where it is further from the Sun than others?

PearsonArtPhotoSomething clearly threw off the script. I've improved it since then a bit, and you will actually see that the back to back close approaches are as follows: Far point from Sun on November 3, 2018 at a distance of 1.668 AU. Far point from Sun on June 7, 2020 at a distance of 1.663 AU. I believe...

04:10
I'm not suggesting that each time a programmer's oversight ends up as an SE question and answer potentially directs traffic to your money-making site (revenue discussed several times here in this chat). But there may be a perception issue considering that you are also a moderator of the site. Perhaps an "abundance of caution" could be considered in this case?
 
4 hours later…
08:02
@uhoh I apologise that I'm not an expert, although by asking and receiving the answer, I now know that in the future this is something I should think about when attempting to solve such problems. Pearson has no control over users going to his site and seeing things that cause them to ask questions. It's the same as any other site posting content related to space exploration, all of them make money, this site just so happens to be owned by a member of our community.
Pearson earning rep and (possibly) money is just a happy side effect of people's willingness to learn and his cooperation in teaching them.
 
2 hours later…
09:44
The thing that makes it interesting is the default options actually include coord@, which is something to be aware of. I had no idea, Horizons is a pretty overwhelming site.
I do agree that the question that I asked about data on my site that was wrong doesn't really belong here, and so I've removed that.
 
1 hour later…
10:54
3
A: What does "coord@10" mean exactly as a target for JPL's Horizons? How to access it?

jpaFrom the tutorial: To select a point on the surface of a target body (limited to those with an IAU rotational model), use this form (units are degrees and km): {g: E.Long, latitude, h@}BODY [geodetic/planetographic coords] {c: E.Long, DXY, DZ@}BODY [cylindrical coordinates] ...

@PearsonArtPhoto this answer shows how to do it manually. I hadn't seen any default options for target. This shows a tutorial for origin i.sstatic.net/S6uCg.png Where are the default options for target shown?
Also, I'd put a lot of work answering that question for you. It's fine that you'd accepted your own answer and then later deleted the wrong statements in it, but I felt that my answer contained helpful information
11:59
@uhoh I am doing it manually, but...
When I first had the options configured, it included the coord@ bit. Not knowing what it was, I just left it in.
The truth be told, the real answer to the one deleted was the same as the newer one.
I was using a point on the sun. The slight oscillations fooled my program into thinking it was a local extrema, which is why it was included.
12:18
The now invisible and un-viewable answer stated the problem was 7 million kilometers. The diameter of the Sun is 1.4 million. It could not be the "wobble" due to barycentric motion nor could it be what you are saying now.
I mean the now invisible and un-viewable question.
The problem is that it tricked my program in to thinking it was a peak.
Oh, I see. it was a timing issue.
And it was ignoring the peaks otherwise.
Right, a local maximum.
You're now up to almost 0.2k points on your answer. You are getting quite a reputation!
LOL
I really don't care much about reputation.
Getting badges I care a little bit about.
12:22
Okay I won't search for how many times you mention your reputation in this chat room.
Hitting the reputation cap works towards a badge, which I do care a bit about.
There is a badge for hitting a rep cap repeatedly? A limit, and a reword for exceeding it?
There are 3 actually.
Okay not everything in SE makes sense to me.
The limit is just to prevent someone from answering a single super popular question and being able to access all of the tools.
I have seen a few times where someone answers a question that gets hundreds of upvotes in a short period of time, and it was their first answer.
You wouldn't want that person to be able to, say, close questions just because they had one really good answer.
Having the badge for hitting the reputation cap a number of times softens that blow a bit.
And for people like me with way too much reputation, it helps to encourage me to continue to be active.
12:27
I literally LOL'ed just now.
I am glad the blow has been softened.
It also helps keep a single, or few people, from answering all of the questions all of the time.
Truthfully, I don't care much about my reputation. Once I hit 25K, there isn't a whole lot of incentive to keep going.
There are remedies for "too much reputation", rep philanthropy via for example. Actually I can't think of any others.
It can be fun sometimes to look at the milestones I pass reputation wise, but it is just a milestone, nothing too much.
12:31
I didn't know there was one at 25K. I would be there already if I didn't do so many bounties.
For a site like ours in beta, the highest is something like 5K.
I should probably give more away in bounties...
Philanthropy can be good.
I did once I hit 25K for a while.
Tag badges are the things that I care the most about these days.
As far as SE is concerned. Presumably in life there are other things as well.
12:48
Totally random factoid about one of your question that I found while researching it.
There is at least one journal article that recommends both nuking and then painting it.
The nuke would clear the surface dust, thus allowing the paint to work better.
13:01
Nuking and then painting an asteroid! That's "adding insult to injury" on an astronomical scale!
13:36
@PearsonArtPhoto and so getting back to chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/43533678#43533678 where are the "default options" that include a specific location on the Surface of the Sun that you mentioned?
Hard to remember exactly... All I know is that the coord showed up when I was trying to get the parameters to appear, and I don't think I did it!
I might have just chosen the wrong thing, not knowing what exactly it meant.
@uhoh, are you aware you can reply to specific messages?
@Edlothiad Even your own (albeit with more difficulty)
No I'm not.
There's a little arrow on the right of everyone else's messages that you can click to get a direct rely. The messages will then link up so the little arrow on the left of the newest message can be used to get back up to the referenced message
13:52
@Edlothiad What is the trick to respond to your own, then?
@geoffc This is painfully complicated. There are two options. Click the left arrow of your message copy the hyperlink into the message box and delete everything except the last 8 numbers and place a colon in front.
@Edlothiad So the reply to the above would start with :43536853
Ah colon, reference number. I see...
Or, you can click in the message box, hover over the little arrow and where it shows you were the link will point to (in the bottom left of your browser) copy that after the colon
@Edlothiad what are the consequences of deleting "everything except the last 8 numbers"
The self reply is rarely needed, unless you're feeling a monologue coming on where you have a change of heart
13:55
@uhoh He means, when you click on teh reply button, it pastes a colon, and 8 digit code into your chat box. It does not let you do that to yourself, per se, directly. So his advice is if you look at the hyper link, it contains the needed 8 digits at the end of the link. Ergo, delete the stuff before the last 8 digits....
@uhoh You keep the message ID. Which when prepended with a colon gives you a message link
As Geoffc said much more elegantly.
And this is easier than using a permalink to link to my previous question? It seems to be much harder in fact.
It is harder for your own messages, sure. It is however easier for anyone wanting to follow the messages back. However for someone else's message. It's much easier than an open ping where you simply type @name as they can see which message you're referencing, and therefore get the context.
It is entirely up to you whether or not you choose to use replies, but the feature exists for a reason, and is useful.
@Edlothiad okay well I will try it here. There is no need to apologize. Indeed you've both acquired a substantial reputation kick from this fortuitous choice of entering the coordinates for a location on the surface of the sun.
Far more than a typical science-based question or thoughtful answer. SE votes can be so fickle sometimes. Congratulations!
Did it work?
Yep
@uhoh You're entitled to your opinion :)
Now you can follow an example back to your message ;)
14:47
The truth is, if that question wasn't asked then I don't know that I would have found the answer, and certainly not as quickly.
I knew there was something off from the plot, but I had attributed the wrong cause to it. It bothered me, but having the question asked, I was provided a comment that gave me the answer.
The person who wrote the comment, however, should have received the bulk of the reputation, not I.
15:13
@PearsonArtPhoto TANJ!
To do this website I've essentially had to learn using Horizons, website design, Plotly.js, some graphic design, and a lot of other things that I've had only a bit of exposure to.
I'm amazed at how well the website has done despite all of that.
 
1 hour later…
16:24
I just realized something. Fixing the wrong Sun reference point fixed the non-smooth ellipses!
That was driving me crazy for the longest time, and now it is resolved. Whew!
That was driving me crazy...
And I never could quite figure it out. Wow, I really should have done the plots a long time ago...
17:22
Randall has way to much time on his hands...
The ultimate time waster was Time: xkcd.com/1190
3000 frames? Madman!
I assume he drew a series of key frames and had some program interpolate the frames between them.
I think for stuff like that he doesn't hand-draw everything.
I know at least some of what he does is computerized hand-drawn images.
Philae lander was up there on what he did too...
17:40
Still one of my favorites and relevant.
LOL
Will be really interesting to see what happens in 2023...
18:39
@geoffc any guess which rover is depicted in this video (after about 02:00)
18:56
Not sure. Ask Mark Adler. :) He works on Mars Rovers for realsies. Also, love Ok Go.
This is cool from them... Done in a Parabolic flight plane.
19:15
Got lost in an Ok Go deep dive. They have way more imagination than anyone should have. :)
 
3 hours later…
22:01
@PearsonArtPhoto *bows*
I should have ploted this stuff AGES ago... Sigh...
I've been too busy running I haven't taken the time often enough to make sure I don't trip.
@PearsonArtPhoto I'm team Oppy! Oppy will survive forever!
Working on a few new designs for my swag store at the moment. Maybe I'll toss one of those in? Hmmm...
Probably not.
The rover has pancam and the wings on it's solar panels that were specifically designed for the MERs (can provide a quote if you want). It also has the rover arm, which holds MB MIMOS II, APXS, MI and RAT.
You can see the little silver wheel on the top, the wheel arrangement, the solar panel wings and pancam.
Although you can't see Oppy's arm :(
Here Spirit has the arm.
Hidden under her stomach, in the front.

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